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So here’s the deal. It’s construction season. You’re busy. I’m busy. We’ll keep this short and to the point. Well, several points. Bullet-points. Maybe we’ll talk about food too. Because I’m not only busy, but also hungry.

GIS User Group

You’re invited!

In Milwaukee, Global Water Center Atrium (R/M Milwaukee location)

Next Wednesday May 24th 11am to 1pm

It’s next-door to Purple Door Ice Cream

Purple Door Ice Cream is dangerously delicious

Oh, we give you food. Not Purple Door, but lunch food

We’re going to talk about tree canopy analysis

And what features are coming through the pipeline

We’ll also work with you to see if GIS can help with your current workload

Want to see street-level photography of your community without leaving your office? In your GIS application, there’s an easy way to access Google Street View and see your assets as you would on the street.

The Linked Maps tool in the HTML5 viewer is typically found on the first tab in the toolbar.

Clicking the Linked Maps tool will open a new window pane below your map.
The blue dot in the map window represents the location in the street view window and the arrow indicates the direction street view is facing. Clicking in street view to move down the street will automatically update the location icon in the map. You can click and drag the blue dot to a different location in the map and street view will update to show the new location. The two windows are “linked” to each other.

If you pan around in the map, the target icon in the street view toolbar (top right corner of the street view window), will change the street view to the center of the map.

The new window icon will open street view in a new window or browser tab. Doing this could allow you to rearrange your browser windows so they are side-by-side. The map and street view windows will still be “linked” to each other if you move around or pan in either window.

Now you can view your assets from the comfort of your office regardless of the weather!

Now that we’re late into the summer, most of you will at some point hear your kid or a neighbor’s shout, “Ready or not, here I come!” as they joyfully run around the yard looking for their hiding friends. If you’re anything like me, you wistfully look at them and think, “I wish finding my layer data in GIS was as much fun as these kids are having.” Okay, so maybe nobody really thinks that, but it was a good segue into this week’s post on how to find layers that might be hiding.

This post is an expansion on a previous article regarding layer visibility. I’d recommend reading it or at least being familiar with the concept of layer visibility before continuing with this week’s post.

Some layers only have their data visible when zoomed to an appropriate scale. For example, the Cemeteries layer will show nothing but its name when zoomed out. This is because only some Cemetery Text is within the visible scale.

To view the layer’s data, you must either zoom in by hand until you are at the appropriate scale, or use the Zoom To Visible Scale feature. To access this feature, first click on the right arrow icon next to the layer you wish to zoom to.

The options presented let you navigate your selected layer in two different ways. The first, Zoom to Full Extent, will zoom to a location and extent that fully encompasses all the data in your layer. This is useful for zooming out to see all of a layer. The second option, Zoom to Visible Scale, will zoom you in to the proper extent to view your layer.

Try these options out and see if you can better find some of your hiding data. See you next Tuesday!

As we saw last week, saving projects is very useful when you need to return to your work without having to re-do any steps. But what about when you need to share your work with others? Luckily, your GIS allows you to easily share your projects with other individuals and groups!

There are several ways you can share your projects. First, if you recall from last week’s #TipTuesday post, after you save your project, you receive a confirmation that says your project has been saved. You’re then presented with the screen below which will let you set sharing permissions or close the dialog, keeping the project to yourself.

Clicking the “Share” button will open the Share Project side panel. On the left hand side, you can select individuals or groups to share with by typing their usernames in the search box and then clicking “Add.” You can also specify whether the users can just view or edit the project. If you do not want anyone to view or edit the project, you can click “None.” After you have specified your preferences, click “Save Sharing” at the bottom. If you ever wish to stop sharing your project, you can click this option at the bottom as well.

Rest assured, sharing does not bypass any of your site’s security. Sharing a project with restricted information will not let the user it was shared with access the shared project unless they have the necessary permissions.

Now, let’s say you didn’t choose to share your project immediately after you first saved it. If you needed to share your project after, you can click “Open” under the “I Want To” menu and then click on the arrow of the project you wish to share. You can then click “Share,” which will bring up the sharing options explained previously.

Now that you’ve briefed yourself on project sharing, give it a try! If you have any questions or would like any clarification, give us a call and we’ll work with you to find your ideal sharing solution.

Stay tuned for more exciting features next #TipTuesday!

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